Oracabessa – origins disputed but most likely leave over from the Spanish. Oracabeza, Golden Head, though what gold was here other than light shining off the bay, other than bananas bursting out from red flowers? But this too is disputed – not the flowers […]
Realms of Gold
Smith
Though other boys would follow flocks and herds, some forage food along the muddy shore, I knew the narrow doorways into dark, could weigh dull stones, judge mysteries of ore. Others were learning how to ride, to fight, while I was studying to work with fire, to conjure out of earth those glowing threads, watching […]
The Guest
l’ll never know who he was, the man that just sat there his face pressed into the head rest, his beard a black avalanche. He sat there in the way piles of gravel do, delivered to the beginning of a drive, one ear folded like a landscape Christmas card, one eye a red foil bauble […]
6 a.m.
This light – too heavy for mere sky to contain – yet somehow each leaf of poplar, beech, ash and oak balances a bar of bullion effortlessly upon its tip.
Gold Song 9
First before nothing was zero; that dark space a gap; the first baby could sing it; surprise at the brightness; the blackbirdsoaked morning; the lips a round gurgle; the first cry a tickle; turned into a flood. First cry was waiting for round lips to soften; the well up; surprise at the full stop. The […]
Portrait of the Mother as a Pitcher
Today I will offer up daffodils. I will put all thought of milk aside. Today I am not a container for warmth and nourishment. This may be the start of what happens next: the spring of green stems from my belly and my reaching hands like those of a gold goddess, open and many.